Monthly Archives: March 2023

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Personal & Writings, Pleasures, Television

How John Wick 4 Writer Broke in With His Extreme Spec Script | Final Draft

By Final Draft Blog, March 16, 2023

From article…

John Wick is one of the most visually spectacular and emotionally unrelenting action franchises around. Chapter 4 is about to hit theaters – part Western, part Kung Fu film, part Samurai story and part redemption tale, this genre mash up is thrilling, sexy, violent and – oh yeah, one hell of a good time.

From a screenplay by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, based on characters by Derek Kolstad, the latest sequel picks up after a tense cliff hanger in Chapter 3 only to bewitch the audience with another jaw-dropping twist at the end of Chapter 4. We sat down with writer Shay Hatton to find out more about his writing process and the unconventional spec that landed him the job writing for the John Wick films.

Source: How John Wick 4 Writer Broke in With His Extreme Spec Script

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Libraries, Music, Religion & Spirit, Times They Are A-Changing

Happy 50th: “Dark Side of the Moon” | Now See Hear! | Library of Congress

Posted by: Cary O’Dell, March 22, 2023

From article…

Fifty years ago this month, one of the most remarkable and deeply enduring albums ever made was released. Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” was added to the Library’s National Recording Registry in 2013. In the essay below, exclusive to the Library, Dr. Daniel J. Levitin examines the brutal beauty of this masterwork.

Angst.  Greed.  Alienation.  Questioning one’s own sanity.  Weird time signatures. Experimental sounds.  In 1973, Pink Floyd was a somewhat known progressive rock band, but it was this, their ninth album, that catapulted them into world class rock-star status.

“The Dark Side of the Moon” spent an astonishing 14 years on the “Billboard” album charts, and sold an estimated 45 million copies.  It is a work of outstanding artistry, skill, and craftsmanship that is popular in its reach and experimental in its grasp.

An engineering masterpiece, the album received a Grammy nomination for best engineered non-classical recording, based on beautifully captured instrumental tones and a warm, lush soundscape.  Engineer Alan Parsons and Mixing Supervisor Chris Thomas, who had worked extensively with The Beatles (the LP was mastered by engineer Wally Traugott), introduced a level of sonic beauty and clarity to the album that propelled the music off of any sound system to become an all-encompassing, immersive experience.

Source: Happy 50th: “Dark Side of the Moon” | Now See Hear!

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Libraries, Memories & History, Pleasures

12 Sci-Fi Stories Written Before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

The Modern Prometheus is a bit too modern to have solely created science fiction, although it did revolutionize it.

By Rob Bricken, published March 21, 2023

F. H. van Hove’s frontispiece for a 1687 edition of Cyrano de Bergerac’s Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon.
Image: Public Domain

Like her titular protagonist, when Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818, she knew not what she had wrought into the world.

Her tale of science taken too far birthed what many consider the first science fiction novel… and what some don’t.

As it turns out, there are several tales told before the 19th century that could also be considered sci-fi stories about aliens, spaceships, time travel, and more. Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of proto-science fiction written when science itself was practically fiction.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item...

Source: 12 Sci-Fi Stories Written Before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Current Affairs, Memories & History, Science & Health, Times They Are A-Changing, Web & Technology

Is ChatGPT Closer to Human Librarian Than It Is to Google?

A search engine researcher explains the promise and peril of letting ChatGPT and its cousins search the web for you.

By Chirag Shah, Published March 19, 2023

Illustration: Phonlamai Photo (Shutterstock)

The prominent model of information access and retrieval before search engines became the norm – librarians and subject or search experts providing relevant information – was interactive, personalized, transparent and authoritative. Search engines are the primary way most people access information today, but entering a few keywords and getting a list of results ranked by some unknown function is not ideal.

A new generation of artificial intelligence-based information access systems, which includes Microsoft’s Bing/ChatGPT, Google/Bard and Meta/LLaMA, is upending the traditional search engine mode of search input and output. These systems are able to take full sentences and even paragraphs as input and generate personalized natural language responses.

At first glance, this might seem like the best of both worlds: personable and custom answers combined with the breadth and depth of knowledge on the internet. But as a researcher who studies the search and recommendation systems, I believe the picture is mixed at best.

Source: https://gizmodo.com/chatgpt-ai-openai-like-a-librarian-search-google-1850238908

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Memories & History, Television

Lance Reddick Remembered at ‘John Wick 4’ Premiere by Keanu Reeves – Variety

By Angelique Jackson, J. Kim Murphy, March 20, 2023

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images | Amy Sussman/Getty Images | Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

The Los Angeles premiere for “John Wick: Chapter 4” on Monday evening was a celebratory, yet somber occasion, as star Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski paid tribute to the late Lance Reddick, who starred as Charon in all four “John Wick” films before dying suddenly on Friday.

Upon arriving at the TCL Chinese Theatre, attendees at the Los Angeles premiere were given blue ribbon pins to wear to honor Reddick. Blue was the late actor’s favorite color.

“Lance is a people person, a special artist, a gentleman of grace and dignity,” Reeves said on the carpet. “It’s just really something special, every time he stepped on set, to watch the passion he had for his work. It’s really easy to work with him.”

Source: https://variety.com/2023/film/news/lance-reddick-john-wick-chapter-4-premiere-keanu-reeves-1235559521/

Arts & Humanities, Current Affairs, Film & Movies, Memories & History, Television

The Consummate Professional: Lance Reddick (1962-2023) | Tributes | Roger Ebert

By Brian Tallerico March 20, 2023

From article…

It’s clichéd to say this about someone after they’re gone, but a show or movie changed when Lance Reddick showed up. He brought a quiet intensity and refined gravity to everything he did. So when his face appeared on screen, everything was somehow instantly elevated.

Think about when he appears late in Adam Wingard’s “The Guest,” taking a film that has been focused on a family and community terrorized by a sociopath and turning it into something much more expansive and intense. His very presence in a scene somehow added stakes to that scene. Oh, wait, we have to take this more seriously now. Lance is here.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item...

Source: The Consummate Professional: Lance Reddick (1962-2023) | Tributes | Roger Ebert